A Matter of Pride
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Mandrea, AU. He wanted to win the game. At this point? It was simply a matter of pride.
**AN: This is a little Mandrea fic for the person who wanted me to "send them to the fair" for something fun.**

 **I own nothing from the Walking Dead.**

 **I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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"Merle? Merle...come on. These things are all rigged and you know it," Andrea insisted as Merle tugged her by the arm toward the shooting booth. He didn't stop tugging her in that direction, though, through the scramble of people who had all come out for the County Fair. "Merle...come on! Let's not waste any more money on them! Look! The scrambler line isn't that long. We could get on this round or the next one if we go now."

The scrambler—her favorite ride and his least favorite. Of course she'd enjoy it. She wasn't the one that spent the entire ride slammed between a metal wall and her body in an ongoing, mechanical attempt to flatten him with the force of her body weight pressing him at high velocities. There was a reason he tried to put that off until the fair closed.

"This one is made for me," Merle insisted. "They can't rig up a target like they could glue them damn bottles together. This is just shootin' and I been doin' that damn near since I could stay on my damn feet."

"They could change the scopes," Andrea said. "Skew them so they're off. Bend the barrels."

Merle stared at her, stopping long enough to disrupt the flow of people and cause them both to have to mutter apologies to some of the passing few who seemed greatly inconvenienced by the effort required to keep from running into them. To keep from disturbing anyone else, Merle continued to tug Andrea toward the booth. He had already lost at handful of the carnival games and he wasn't going to leave the fair until he'd won _something_. They were Dixon's for crying out loud. It was a matter of pride at this point.

As soon as he was belly up at the table where the guns were mounted, paper targets printed with red stars hanging out in front of them, Merle let go of Andrea's hand. She immediately used her free hand to return to eating the praline pecans out of the paper cone that she'd been munching on for the past half hour. He ignored her for a moment as she tried, one more time, to insist that he not play the game that he was determined to play.

"How much?" Merle asked the man behind the table that was chewing on a toothpick.

"Three dollars for one," the man said. "Five for two. Ten for five."

Merle laughed to himself.

"How many times do you think it's gonna take me to hit that damn target? It ain't even that small," Merle said.

The man smirked at him. He even snorted as he straightened himself up and walked over to line himself up with Merle.

"Ain't gotta hit it," the man said. "Gotta shoot the whole star out. No red left or it don't count. Ain't had but one person do it all day. And they's a lotta traffic through here. Takes a lot of skill."

Merle let his eyes follow in the direction that the man indicated with a slight toss of his head. Displayed on the little wall behind him, with all the cheap prizes up for grabs, was a target with the red star entirely shot out by the BBs that the mounted guns would fire. Whether or not it had actually been done by someone at the fair or was just placed there to goad people into shelling out their money was impossible to tell.

Merle didn't have to look at Andrea to know that she was actively disapproving of him even considering the game. She'd rather eat the food and ride the rides—considering both to be guaranteed returns for their money spent. But Merle? He came for the games. He came for the competition. He knew most of the games were rigged and that only increased the challenge. He hadn't won any yet, but he knew that winning one and cheating the cheaters would be, no doubt, an incredible feeling.

He walked down the line a moment and examined the weapons that he could choose from if he counted out his bills for the man who was manning the booth. Slowly, a few people were stopping and gathering around to watch with interest to see if he might win or lose a game that was designed to make him fail. He was gaining an audience. Knowing it was going to be the last game that Andrea let him play—win or lose—Merle took out his wallet, selected a ten dollar bill, and bought five chances for himself to beat the system.

The man accepted the cash with a genuine smile. Money would do that, especially with people who made a living out of swindling others.

"Got a gun picked out?" The man asked. "This one here's the best. The one that gentleman shot perfect on."

Merle hummed. That likely meant the gun was the worst. He gave the man a smile all his own.

"Got me five tries," he said. "Figure I'ma try all of 'em on for size. See which one suits me in the end."

The man shrugged. He gestured toward the weapons with a sweep of his hand and Merle noticed his growing audience.

"Start where you want," the man said. "They're all freshly loaded and ready to go." Merle glanced at his audience and purposefully avoided making eye contact with Andrea.

Win or lose, it was a matter of pride now.

Merle walked all the way to the gun, of the three available to him, that was farthest from where he'd been standing. Without permission from the man behind the booth, he popped open the door to the BB holding area and examined how many were in there. The man looked irritated, but Merle wasn't going to get tricked with something as simple as a low count of BBs to begin with. Satisfied, he examined the gun. To the eye it looked fine, but he wouldn't know anything about it, really, until he tried to fire it. He leaned down, lined up his shot, and squeezed the trigger. Immediately it shot several more of the metal beads than he intended to fire. The trigger was rigged to fire extra quickly. It would cost you all your BBs as fast as possible, making it almost impossible to aim well enough to get rid of the whole star.

Merle straightened up, looked at his target, and hummed.

"This one gives it out faster'n a two dollar whore," Merle commented. There was a ripple of laughter from the people gathered to watch him and a growl of dissatisfaction from the man in charge.

"There's nothing wrong with the gun," the man insisted.

"Maybe not," Merle commented. "But there's sure somethin' wrong with the trigger."

From the looks of it, the gun was shooting straight enough. He could shoot the whole damn star out, in its original shape, if it weren't for the fact that he'd run out of BBs long before he made the first turn. Still, he had to finish this round so he did. He got nowhere close to shooting out the star.

The second of the guns wasn't much better. The site was off on that one and he let everyone around him know it. He could somewhat site the thing without it, despite the delicacy of the task he was being asked to do, but at the end of his shooting efforts there was still some red left to indicate where the star had been—and the man said no red at all. The barrel was curved, Merle was sure, on the third of the guns. As with the second, he could make do with it, but it wasn't precise enough for him to remove the star from its paper target on his first try.

"You've got two more tries left," the man reminded Merle when he'd passed him the third target to examine.

"Three warped guns," Merle said with a chuckle. "Not good damn odds for anyone."

The man frowned at him and shook his head. For a man who made his life swindling people, he took it very badly when someone pointed out what he was doing.

"There's not a thing wrong with the guns," he insisted. Merle chuckled at him.

"Whatever ya say," Merle said, deciding not to fight with the guy—especially not with an audience. He looked at the guns and tried to decide between the last two that he'd fired. Those would be the easiest for him to accomplish the task on if he were going to accomplish it at all—and he was certain that he was.

"Let me try," Andrea said, catching his attention by quickly resting her hand on his shoulder. He looked at her and laughed.

"Thought you said these were all rigged?" He challenged. "That can't nobody do it."

She shook her head.

"We know they're rigged," she said. "You know it too. Come on...let me try."

Merle smirked at her. Andrea had been going down to the shooting range for the past couple of months. The first time she'd ever even fired a gun was about six months before at some targets that Merle had set up in a field not far from their house. She'd done alright, for a person who had never even fired a gun before, but she hadn't hit much of anything she'd been aiming at. Her signature move, at least from that day, was to shoot the target directly _beside_ the one she was aiming at. He hadn't taken her out shooting much since then and she'd taken up the hobby of stopping by the range in town after work.

Now she thought she was a regular Annie Oakley.

"You wanna shoot," he said, "then you buy your own."

"Come on, Merle," Andrea complained. "You got your best shot already out of each of them. You keep firing them and they're just going to get hotter. It's not getting any better."

The man behind the counter laughed and Merle eyed him. He might give Andrea hell about things, but he didn't appreciate it very much if anyone else tried to do the same.

"I got two more tries," Merle said. "You wanna try? We'll buy you in. But I got two more tries."

Andrea rolled her eyes at him.

"Forget it," she said. "I'm not paying this guy anymore money—not to shoot warped guns."

The man behind the counter took some offense to that. The sound of him sucking his teeth made it clear. As a show, and in front of the audience that was gathered around and trying to decide if they wanted a chance at the game, he got Andrea's attention.

"Let him finish his two tries," the man said. He smirked at her. "Then? I'll give you a shot. On the house. Free try for a—lovely lady."

He winked at Andrea and it was Merle's turn to suck his teeth at the man.

He pointed to the gun he'd finally chosen, the one with the bent barrel since he seemed to be able to correct it enough to give himself the most accuracy he was getting out of the three, and the man loaded it for him and hung a new target. He did better the second time around, but there was still some red. The third reloading and fresh target followed immediately after. Merle was congratulating himself, before he'd even gotten the paper target, because he could see that he'd shot the star right on out of there. There was even the sound of a little congratulations coming up from around him.

"Still red," the man said, examining the target before he handed it to Merle.

Merle took it and looked at it.

"There ain't a damn bit of red showin'," he insisted.

"Right there," the man said, tracing his finger around the edges. From the underside of the target he pushed back some of the paper that the BBs had folding in their spray. "Red."

"That's bein' pretty damn picky," Merle said.

The man smiled. Merle didn't like his expression at all.

"Name of the game," the man said.

"Fuck it," Merle mumbled. "This whole damn thing is rigged. Can't nobody win it because it ain't an honest game. Come on, Andrea. Let's go ride the damn scrambler."

He waved at Andrea to come with him, the crowd that had gathered starting to break up now that they were disappointed by the fact that Merle hadn't won, but she shook her head at him.

"I get a try," she said. "Don't I?" She asked, directing her question at the man in the booth. He smiled at her.

"That's what I said," he agreed. "Step up, _Andrea_. Pick your gun."

Andrea walked to the middle gun and looked it over. Merle bit back the desire to smile over the fact that she was pretending that she knew more than she did. Taking her shooting? He loaded it for her. He told her how to stand. He helped her get her hands right and her stance right so she didn't end up o her ass. He knew they did the same at the shooting range. The lucky thing was that here, just as at other places, she only had to pull the trigger to fire the gun.

"I'll take the one without a decent scope," Andrea said with a smirk while she waited for the man to set everything up for her. Loaded and with a fresh target, he waved his hand to give her the go ahead. She lined up her shot, squeezed the trigger and immediately released it. She stood up and squinted at the target to judge the damage she'd done. Merle leaned on the wooden platform and waited, helping himself to some of the snacks she'd rested there for later, most of them nothing but scraps at this point. Then she returned to shooting, taking her time and not concerning herself at all with the fact that he was waiting on her.

But Merle stood up when he realized what she was doing. He straightened himself entirely when he watched her slowly complete her task as she created a wide circle around the star and finally peppered the middle of the target with the few BBs she had left.

He didn't try to hide his surprise, because the fair worker certainly wasn't, when the man examined the target whose center was entirely missing. The man shook his head and sucked his teeth.

"You shot the whole center out," he said. "Didn't shoot the star out."

Merle scoffed at him.

"You ain't said shit about it's gotta be in the damn shape of a star! There ain't no red there and that's all the hell you said was gotta happen. She shot all the damn red out. The star's on the ground over there if you go lookin' for what the hell's left of it."

Andrea was red in the face, too, at the man's suggestion that she hadn't done exactly what was asked of her.

"The star's gone," she said. "You didn't say how it had to be gone. You said it had to be gone. You can't go back on your rules just because you lost at your own game!"

The man opened his mouth like he might argue, but there was some sign of uprising from the five or so people that had hung around just to see how Andrea might do at the task. Finally seeing evidence that the game _could_ be won, they were pissed off to see that the man might go back on the rules. Seeing he was outnumbered, the man laughed it off and gave her a prize—which was really of very little consequence to her—before he declared her a winner of the game.

And as sour as Merle felt, in the pit of his stomach, over the fact that his wife had upstaged at him what he'd considered to be _his game_ , there was also a swelling of pride over the fact that she'd beat the system and made the smug ass bastard in the booth eat a little crow.

She was a Dixon, after all, and that's all that mattered here.

"Come on, darlin'," Merle said, gathering up everything she'd left resting on the table and taking the paper target from the man to keep as proof of the whole thing. "Let's go home."

Andrea beaming with a touch of pride but also looking more than a little smug over her accomplishment, looped her arm with his and leaned into him before taking the target from him to examine it at her leisure.

"I'm going to put this on the refrigerator," she declared. "Right there to remind you—in case you forget—what I'll do to you if I have to."

Merle laughed to himself at her playful threat.

"Heard you," he teased. "Loud an' clear. Come on, sugah."

We're not going home," Andrea said. "Because we still haven't ridden the scrambler."


End file.
